![]() ![]() These days (around here anyway), we refer to an academic writing on a specific topic that is the result of a school assignment designed to ruin your weekend as either an “essay” or simply a “paper.” But youths in other times (or spaces) called them themes. I’ll spare you the extended discussion, but 2/16/97 is pretty good.)Īnother useful usage is probably out of date, or maybe just regional. (Before we leave the musical meaning, I am obligated (because I am one of them) to note that when you mention “Theme” to a Phish fan, you might start a debate on which live performance of “Theme From the Bottom” is best. It must be memorable, it must evoke a specific feeling, and, ideally, it should be capable of at least some modification so that it doesn’t become stale with repetition. This is an almost perfect analogue for what we want a trial theme to achieve. Within that general usage, we tend to think in cinematic terms - the theme from Jaws, the Godfather Theme, the Theme From (god help me) A Summer Place. The most common use is probably the musical one - “a short melodic statement from which variations are developed” (thanks, ). ![]() The word evokes a few possible meanings, all of them helpful in understanding why you need one at trial. There are countless articles about “telling an effective story at trial” (indeed, I received an e-mail with a link to one while drafting this post), and it’s a topic that I will probably come back to in the future, but for now I want to focus a bit on the importance of selecting a good theme as part of trial strategy. But there is an art (and science) to organizing information in a compelling way so that a fact-finder - a judge or a jury - will understand the nuances, respect your client’s choices, and, ultimately, have sympathy for the client’s predicament. I’m not talking about writing fiction, of course. (Alas, they were roughly 22 years too late.) The next day, one of them paid me a nice compliment: “You’re a very good storyteller.” I thanked her, of course, rather than voicing my initial reaction, which was, “Well, it is what I do for a living ….” Girls who hadn’t been born when the trial took place were retroactively begging one of my teammates not to quit mock trial after the debacle. This year when I told The Texas Story, it had precisely the intended effect - some shock, but mostly gritty resolve to put their best foot forward and let the chips fall where they may. To prepare teams for the possibility of somewhat … uneven … judging, I usually tell the bad beat story (known as “The Texas Story”) the night before the tournament starts. It’s the mother of all “ bad beat” stories. (As it was, we finished 3rd, 3rd, and 5th in my sophomore, junior, and senior years. Every time I go to nationals, I am reminded of my own experiences as a student competitor, when my team came within a whisker of making the final round and a first- or second-place finish. ![]() The national tournament is an intense academic exercise, and also a ton of fun. Remember the 2013 Winsor Mock Trial Team that won the state championship? A few weeks ago we traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana to compete in the national tournament. ![]()
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